Tutorial 2 - Shneidermans 8 Golden Rules of Design

Shneiderman's Rules related to an iPod

Strive for consistency - This means that you need to keep menu interfaces similar and the user interaction within the menus the same, such as using the same button that selected a menu is a the same button that selects a song on a iPod/mp3 player.

Enable frequent users to use shortcuts - This means that they’re should be a shortcut system of some kind within your design, by allowing a user to select favourites i.e. a shortcut on an iPod/mp3 player would be the ability to set up play lists.

Offer informative feedback – This is means that when the user does tries to complete an action they want to know that a process is happening by some kind of feedback. Like when a button is pressed on an iPod/mp3 player a sound byte is usually played and then the menu or song will change. Loading screens and status bars are other examples. Volume controls often include a status bar which is another example of informative feedback.

Design dialogs to yield closure – This is to ensure that the user knows exactly what is going on, like simple hello and goodbye screens on some iPods/mp3 players let the user know the device is switching on and off.

Strive to prevent errors, and help users to recover quickly from them – Error prevention is a way of telling the user when something has gone wrong on the system. On a PC it usually comes in the form of error or warning boxes. On an iPod/mp3

Allow 'undo' - This means that within the design there needs to be a simple way of allowing the user to change their mind, for example if the user selects the wrong song on the mp3 player there needs to be a back or undo button so they can get back to the song list.

Make users feel they are in control of a responsive system – This is also linked with users wanting to know what is happening within the device. The device needs to have the technology to quickly react to how the users control it. In an iPod/mp3 player when a song is selected it starts playing straight away.


Reduce short-term memory load – With any design you need to reduce the amount the user has to think about and keep it as simple as possible. This is so the user does not get confused. iPods/mp3 players do this quite well thanks to simple easily navigated interfaces.